Main Street Selection Group To Resume Search For Manager

March 10, 1987|By FRED LOWERY, Staff Writer

LAKE WORTH -- Members of a special selection committee that has been trying since November to choose a new manager for the city`s Main Street program are scheduled to try again before the end of the week.

Acting City Manager John Sczymanski said he had called on the group, made up of members of the Main Street Advisory Board, to move ahead on the selection as quickly as possible.

Sczymanski said he had received copies of more than a dozen applications, which had been submitted to the state Main Street office in anticipation of the designation soon of a new group of a half-dozen cities as Main Street municipalities.

The hurriedly called meeting of the selection committee comes in the wake of last week`s resignation of acting Main Street Manager Carolyn Kuznar because of what she termed harassment by advisory committee member Joe Martin.

``It really surprised me,`` Sczymanski said, ``because she didn`t talk to me about it first. Maybe we could have worked something out.``

The resignation vacated a program that Kuznar has been running since the departure of its original manager, Diane Fenner, last Oct. 1. Fenner refused to renew her contract because of continual personal and professional criticism by some city commissioners.

Since Fenner`s departure, the city has been turned down by its two top choices for program manager.

Meanwhile, members of the advisory board, the City Commission and the Downtown Development Authority formally dedicated the new Main Street parking lot, located between Lake and Lucerne avenues west of L Street.

The facility, while controversial in its development and financing, was hailed as a step in the revitalization of downtown.

Because questions remain about the quality of the paving on the lot`s surface, it will not open for a few days, until laboratory tests of the asphalt are completed.

Mayor David Hinsa said the lot was the third example of a successful project undertaken through cooperation between the city and another governmental agency: in this case, the DDA.

The other two, he noted, were the new Spillway Park, developed by the South Florida Water Management District on the city`s northern boundary; and the acquisition of four new trolleys with help from Palm Beach County`s CoTran, which pushed through a federal grant.

Just opening the lot, however, should be considered only a start for the city and DDA, said City Commissioner Roy Strohacker.

``Now let`s get busy and help get the merchants to have some people out here to use it,`` he said.